keeping the promise
by Andrea1301
Summary: "Isn't it funny, that we start thinking about the beginning right before the end?" / The inevitable downfall and uprising of Beck and Jade.


"_Some people don't understand the promises they're making when they make them," I said.___

_"Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway."__  
__―__John Green__,__The Fault in Our Stars_

He can't remember the first time they met. He can't tell you whether their conversations were awkward at first or if they got along better.

He can't remember a time without her, not really. He can't recall the first time he saw her eyes or the time he talked to her.

He can't remember a day not spent like this, lying around on her couch, watching old movies and stuffing their faces with popcorn.

He can't remember his _life_ without her in it.

(He wouldn't want to if he could, though.)

-

She's known him since forever, she tells everyone. She used to wrestle with him when they were little and it was him who taught her how to ride a bike.

That was before wrestling became awkward and riding bikes turned into driving cars.

Their mothers had been best friends long before either of them was born.

(Sometimes she thinks it was destiny looking after them all along.)

-

The closest thing either of them remember as a beginning is her twelve birthday.

Jade had worn a pretty white dress – on her mother's request – and a cute ponytail held her brown locks together. Despite her pristine outfit, though, she had been nothing but eager to play with Beck and Andre on her garden, her _adult _guests and expensive gifts long forgotten.

It was when she fell on her knees after an exceptionally high jump, that he realized how pretty she really was.

(He wondered how he hadn't been able to notice before.)

That's as much as a beginning either of them remember.

-

Jade tells him one day, lying on his bare chest, her pale hands caressing his arms, trying to reach out to him in the only way she knows how now – she wonders when she turned this lame – "Isn't it funny, that we start thinking about the beginning right before the end?"

He doesn't know what to say to her.

(Deep down, he knows he never does.) 

It's kind of weird how it all ends. He doesn't say anything, and neither does her either. There's no fight, no hatred, no argument, not third person running their relationship. It's just them. It's always been just them, ruining stuff for themselves.

Loves turns into indifference, fire runs cold, and even hands and bodies pressed together, lips folded into a desperate kiss, can help them get back.

_Maybe that's the way things were supposed to go,_ she tries to convince herself. _Prince Charming is waiting just round the corner._

(Except he is right there looking at her with an empty stare trying to figure out, just like her, where it all went wrong.)

He's not as charming anymore, huh?

Their first kiss, she remembers.

Beck had been at her kitchen, making some more popcorn for their star-wars marathon and when he came back, she just couldn't stop herself.

She just leaned forward as soon as he sat down, and her lips met his in the first of many heated kisses.

His hands flew instantly to her hips, like he wasn't just 14 and had been recently tossing popcorn and messing with her hair.

It all changed that night.

Sometimes she knows it was for the better. (Other times she is not so sure.)

Their downfall is one of the most gracefully handled, the press agree. She just packs her bags, makes a few calls and she's _out_.

Jade is a Broadway superstar and Beck is an A list actor and these things happen, the editors of various magazines try to convince their readers.

Everyone with a pair of eyes can see the mess that Jade is and the fucker that Beck turned into. And there is no denying it.

"We just need some space; I hope this turns out to be for the best." Is the only official statement they get from Beck Oliver.

"Fuck you." Jade's is not that official.

Beck really tries for a couple of years, even after he realizes her complaints turning into screams and then little quirks he once found cute begin to annoy him.

He tries to be there for her, to make her realize the mess they're into and the little he can do to make it right.

He can't do it anymore one day. And he just stops.

It isn't that horrible really, till the day she gets home and there's two glasses of wine on the counter and lipstick marks on his neck.

Jade guesses she should have known. Maybe she did, all along.

And just like that it's over. (When did even begin?)

The thing that hurts the most, Jade thinks, a bottle of wine on one hand and a pack of Marlboro on the other one, is that she doesn't fucking _care_.

She doesn't even remember a time when she did anymore, and she is sure Beck doesn't either.

Or so she tries to tell herself.

It starts all over again one day, with a drunken phone call and a renewed, better heated kiss. It is like the first time all over again, except not really, not entirely.

Jade thinks that maybe she could be happy with him, as his hands come to rest on her hips and her heart pounds on her chest. And she tries to remember, if just once, the reason why she had never felt this whole before.

So she remembers the pain and the hatred and the lonely nights and fights and her mind just telling her to stop, to run once again and never look back, because this boy – who suddenly turned into a _man, _somehow, when she was not looking – is going to break her heart once again.

And it's only then that she realizes Beck had never broken her heart.

(She had been the one to break both her and his.)

This time, they swear as they trace shapes on each other's bodies, this time its forever.

Forever is never easy, they both know.

Forever is scary.

Forever is full of uncertainty and doubts and unpaid bills and pregnancies and rough patches.

Forever is all they have.

"_You know," A seventeen-year-old Jade used to tell Beck all the time. "I have faith on us."_

_An equally oblivious Beck used to believe her words. _

_**A/N: I don't even know what this is. Non-linear, weird, angsty bade that's been building up on me for several weeks, feels good to let it out. **_

_**Thanks for reading, hope you liked it.**_

_**(There's not even dialogue on this thing idek what it is. I'm sorry)**_


End file.
